Did you know that U.S. businesses lose around $36.4 billion every year to employee absenteeism?
Ever question how your team’s time is actually being used?
You’re not alone.
Most staffing agencies understand the importance of proper time management. How you record and manage labor hours directly affects profitability, compliance, employee satisfaction, and operational resilience.
But many lack insight into how employees spend their time at work, who’s clocking in, and when and where they’re doing so.
That’s why every staffing firm should start 2026 with a data-driven mindset. Measuring time and attendance benchmarks offers a data-backed way to assess current workforce efficiency and identify future areas for improvement.
Below are the critical staffing time-tracking benchmarks your agency should use to measure success and prepare for a profitable new year.
What Are Time and Attendance KPIs and Why Do They Matter?
Staffing agency KPIs for time and attendance provide actionable, meaningful information to measure employee punctuality, productivity, attendance, and work hours against internal goals or established industry averages.
Rather than guessing who shows up to work or how time is used, staffing firms can rely on facts that clearly show what’s happening during each workday.
However, as Mark Twain said, “If the metrics you are looking at aren’t useful in optimizing your strategy, stop looking at them.”
It’s crucial to use the right data. When you focus on metrics that truly matter, you gain valuable insights that deliver stronger outcomes.
Key Benchmarks Staffing Agencies Should Track in 2026
1. Attendance Rate and Absenteeism
This is the percentage of scheduled shifts that employees actually work, versus the rate of unplanned absences or no-shows. It’s also important to track punctuality, including late arrivals, early departures, and repeated tardiness.
Unplanned absences and no-shows can disrupt client operations, reduce trust in your agency, and cause revenue loss, especially if you can’t fill or cover the shift quickly.
While benchmarks vary by industry, your agency should aim to have attendance rates well above 95%. If you begin to see no-show or absenteeism creeping toward 10%, it’s a red flag worth investigating.
2. Billable Hours Utilization Rate
This benchmark is the ratio of the hours worked by your temporary or contract workers that are billed to clients, over total hours worked, including non-billable time such as breaks.
Not only does this metric show how effectively employees use their time to generate revenue, but it also supports resource allocation and improves profitability.
Aim for a 70% utilization rate for billable staff over a reporting period. Aiming for perfection isn’t sustainable and can quickly lead to burnout.
3. Payroll, Time and Attendance Accuracy
Always measure the degree to which recorded hours, payroll, and client billing align, meaning minimal errors, missing time, overpayments, or client under-billing.
Errors in pay or bill calculations directly erode margin and profitability. Worse, repeated errors damage client trust and expose you to compliance risk if employees get paid late. Having a robust staffing agency time management system helps to enhance data integrity, boost productivity through automation, and reduce manual errors.
Target complete accuracy in pay and bill reconciliation. Staffing agencies that achieve this can significantly reduce payroll processing time and lost hours.
4. Inaccurate Time Logged
Time theft can occur when employees are paid for hours they didn’t actually work. The most common form is buddy punching, where one worker clocks in or out for another. This can be prevented by using a time-tracking system with biometric capabilities, such as Timerack.
Instead of tracking time theft as a single metric, which is difficult to quantify directly, focus on measuring time and attendance integrity benchmarks, which include:
- Percentage of verified punches
- Number of flagged or unauthorized time edits
- Frequency of duplicate or suspicious punch patterns
- Ratio of biometric and verified punches vs. unverified punches
A healthy workforce-management system should automatically detect anomalies and minimize the opportunity for unauthorized clock-ins.
Set Your Staffing Firm Up for Success in 2026
By effectively measuring and benchmarking time and attendance, your agency can transform its operations. With the right tools, you shift from reactive firefighting to proactive management.
Don’t lose money to absentism, time theft, or other issues. Snag your Timerack demo today to learn how our intuitive time and attendance software can help you turn data into deeper insights, better decisions, and more profits in 2026 and beyond.